It’s that time of year again - merchants across the globe are frantically working to get ready for what promises to be the biggest Black friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) yet. Online sales over the 2018 discount period jumped 23.6% year on year, and analysts predict that this year retailers will pull in as much as $7.5 billion on Black Friday.

If you opened this post, you probably don’t need to be sold on the value of podcasts for ecommerce businesses. Before I began writing this post, I researched some statistics explaining the growing ubiquity of the podcast medium, hoping to justify why podcasts are valuable tools for engaging and retaining customers. I wanted to establish a little weight for the following list but this is Ecommerce Magazine. You don’t need to be sold; you came here because you’re a seller.

Part of our ongoing efforts to engage with and learn what’s going on in the ecommerce community includes sitting down and talking one-on-one with industry names. One of those names is Tim Fleschner, Co-Founder of Eone, a design firm that aims to create a world that is more beautiful, equitable, and sustainable for everyone. They believe that “good design” often excludes many people on the basis of ability, and they’ve set out to solve that problem by building beautiful watches that are accessible for one.

Scaling a company is hard, but scaling successfully is even harder. This is especially true for ecommerce businesses. There are countless tools that make it easier for even the smallest brands and retailers to make their mark, but growing a business to its potential is another story. Maintaining open communication, an atmosphere that fosters creativity and collaboration, and utilizing the right technology are essential to ensuring your ecommerce business stays agile as it grows.

Since Facebook took pre-check away on April 9th, marketers need to come up with better methods of acquiring Messenger subscribers. Gone are the days of users adding items to their cart and getting auto-subscribed to Facebook Messenger. Personally, I think this is a good thing!

Last week, Bloomberg reported anonymous sources at Amazon have confirmed that Vendors will be told to migrate to Amazon’s Seller Central platform in the future. No timeline has been confirmed, but this validates previous Vendor concerns, who were sent an email from Amazon in March, that they will no longer be receiving future purchase orders. Amazon eventually informed all Vendors that the email was sent by mistake, but rumors regarding the future of Vendor Central started gaining traction.

No matter what one is looking for, a typical shopper will have the choice of making the purchase from at least ten Shopify stores. Now as a customer, you love having some options at hand. But as a business, these very options are costing you new sales and even taking away your existing customers.

Every year it seems, some new technology announces the end of email, FOREVER! Email was supposed to die 10 years ago with the rise of the social network. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and to a lesser extent Myspace envisioned a world where ALL communication would funnel through their platforms. We all know how that turned out.